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The Blu Vivo Air is something of a paradox. This phone approaches the technical limit of how thin we can make a modern smartphone. It's not the absolute thinnest phone, no, that race is ongoing with successive manufacturers cutting their phones down fractions of a millimeter at a time to claim the latest title. But it is still very thin — thinner than any mainstream flagship device you'll find...

The first real, shipping Tizen phone is basic — very basic
With the explosive success of Samsung's Galaxy line of Android phones, the Korean giant's symbiotic relationship with Google has been the subject of much speculation within the mobile industry. Just as Samsung is reliant on Google for the software behind its smartphones, Google's services are viewed by many users through the lens of a...

One of the more exciting pieces of consumer hardware to come out of CES 2015 wasn't from the usual Android suspects. Not Samsung. Not HTC or Motorola or LG or even ASUS.
Nope. In 2015, we welcome Dell back to the Android stage with an awkwardly named but very-much-a-player Venue 8 7840 tablet — which you'll also see referenced as the Venue 8 7000 Series.
The broad strokes — it's an extremely...

Meet YotaPhone's second attempt to make a dual-screen smartphone. YotaPhone 2 is AMOLED in the front, ePaper in the back, and has just enough software to make both sides completely unique without crossing the line into what we all too commonly refer to as bloatware. It's a worthy successor to the original YotaPhone in every way, but more than that it makes a compelling case for having and using...

The first device in the new-for-Europe Honor brand mixes high-end specs and an affordable price point
Huawei's continued push in Europe has recently seen the launch of the Honor brand, and with it the Honor 6. It's an interesting proposition, in so much as it's offering a high-end Android smartphone at a low price thanks to avoiding carrier partnerships. The Honor 6 is available through Amazon...

HTC's little handheld camera … thing
HTC's dabbled in non-smartphone electronics before, primarily speakers, but the HTC RE Camera is without a doubt one of the weirdest and most beyond HTC's comfort zone. This is the HTC that famously put just a 4-megapixel camera in its flagship HTC One M8 smartphone, so a little handheld camera with a 16MP sensor? That's different.

Selfie. The first time I heard the word I paused. Do we really need a term for taking a photo of yourself at arm's length with a crappy front-facing camera? (I may have used stronger language). That was a few years ago. Today the term has exploded in use, and smartphone cameras aren't quite so little and crappy anymore, but I still hate even reading the word, much less using it. It's spawned...

Android Wear gains standalone GPS in a watch that mostly favors function over form
When it comes to smartwatches, you can sort of break things down into three camps. There's the rubber strap crowd — functional, but not all that stylish. There's leather, which classes things up a good bit but doesn't necessarily work on every watch. And then there's those who prefer a steel bracelet.
I've...

Combining a wearable item that so many people use with a technology fewer people are using every day
Wearables, fitness trackers and smartwatches are all the rage, and Huawei wasn't to be left in the dust when it announced the TalkBand B1. Yes it's a fitness band, with a companion app that tracks your steps, calories and sleep — but one little extra thing the TalkBand does (tipped by its name...

A low cost fitness band perfect for those a little more casual about what they're tracking
Xiaomi started out making its own custom version of Android, MIUI. Then it started making phones. Now, just 4 years on from first existing as a company there is a whole range of other products you can buy besides phones. A tablet, earphones, battery packs, routers, and even a fitness band.
It's the last...

In late 2013, Lenovo recruited Ashton Kutcher – yes, that Ashton Kutcher – as its celebrity "product engineer" to collaborate on the original Yoga Android tablet. In all fairness, wasn't like other Android tablets around at the time, and that hasn't changed much to this day. With an unusual design and claims of killer battery life, there were certainly things to help it stand out from the crowd...

Samsung didn't just make a smartwatch — it made a really small phone for your wrist
Samsung helped launch the idea of a modern smartwatch to general consumers when it unveiled the original Galaxy Gear. That was in September 2013, if you can believe it, and since then Samsung has launched four more smartwatches — the Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo, Gear Fit and Gear Live. And here we are just over a year...

HTC's second 'mid-range flagship' this year is a solid improvement in almost every area
The past year has seen the HTC Desire range — the Taiwanese manufacturer's line of mid-range handsets — expanded to cover everything from the super-cheap Desire 510 to the selfie-centric Desire EYE. And with it, HTC has introduced a new, unashamedly plastic design language, while keeping software...

Samsung's first curved Note is an interesting tech demo, but it's far from a slam-dunk overall
Samsung has been at the forefront of new display technologies throughout recent history, pushing the limits of what AMOLED panels in phones and tablets can do. And beyond improvements in resolution, brightness and colors, Samsung has recently tinkered with curved and flexible displays of all sizes...

The Nexus 6 is a really big Moto X, minus most of the good Moto X bits
How much does Google's new Nexus 6 — manufactured by Motorola and a spitting image of the 2014 Moto X — have in common with its more diminutive cousin? I found that out the hard way, trying to pull the SIM card out of my Moto X and swapping it into what for us phone nerds (to say nothing of editors of Android websites) is...

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